” When Chik-Fil-A chief operating officer Dan T. Cathy made a series of comments opposing same-sex marriage, it caused a media firestorm. Gay rights activists called for protests and boycotts of the chain, and even went as far as vandalizing some fast food stores. One man in particular took it upon himself to express his discontent in the most mature way possible, verbally attacking a sweet female employee who had nothing to do with the controversy.

37-year-old Adam Smith recorded himself being hateful and obnoxious to the employee and posted it to his YouTube channel.

Apparently he thought that he was going to get away with harassing the employee without a problem, he thought wrong. He was immediately fired for his intolerance and disgusting behavior.

He said at the time he was earning $200,000 annually and had over $1 million in stock options.

“ It was taken when I lost my employment,” he said.

After losing his job, Smith, his wife Amy and their four children also lost their home. They were forced to sell and give away their possessions and move into an RV. A few months later, Smith found a new CFO job in Portland, Oregon.

Smith thought he was home free until his new boss caught wind that he was the hateful man from the Chik-Fil-A drive-thru video. He was immediately fired from that job as well. Smith said in subsequent job interviews, he was very honest about the video and while prospective employers seemed empathetic and understanding in the end the companies would rescind the offers saying they didn’t want the distraction.”

” With grocery bills priced as high as $1,300 per month as of late, some American workers simply cannot afford all of their groceries on top of everything else they already have to buy. This is why the government offers food stamps.

The USDA Food and Nutrition Service reports that as of September 2014, there were around 46.5 million individual food stamp recipients (22.7 million households) receiving an average benefit of $123.74 each (around $257 per household).

To be eligible, a household has to earn a gross income amount that’s less than 130% of the poverty level, or a net income amount (gross income minus deductions) that’s less than 100% of the poverty level for their family size.

This means, a single person can be eligible for food stamps if his or her gross monthly income is under $1,265 ($15,180 per year), and a family of four can be eligible if they gross less than $2,584 per month ($31,008 per year). The applicant also can’t be a wealthy person who simply doesn’t have a steady income source. So, if the applicant has thousands of dollars sitting in the bank, for instance, they won’t apply as cash assets are considered as well.”

And the “winner” is … our nation’s capital …

” 1. District of Columbia

• Number of food stamp recipients: 144,768

• Percentage of the state’s population on food stamps: 21.97%

• Total cost of just these benefits alone (That is, how much do just the money on those EBT cards cost the state?): Around $18 million

• Estimated cost of benefits alone per capita in this state: $27.19 per person “

” 109,631,000 Americans lived in households that received benefits from one or more federally funded “means-tested programs” — also known as welfare — as of the fourth quarter of 2012, according to data released Tuesday by the Census Bureau.

The Census Bureau has not yet reported how many were on welfare in 2013 or the first two quarters of 2014.

But the 109,631,000 living in households taking federal welfare benefits as of the end of 2012, according to the Census Bureau, equaled 35.4 percent of all 309,467,000 people living in the United States at that time.

When those receiving benefits from non-means-tested federal programs — such as Social Security, Medicare, unemployment and veterans benefits — were added to those taking welfare benefits, it turned out that 153,323,000 people were getting federal benefits of some type at the end of 2012.

Subtract the 3,297,000 who were receiving veterans’ benefits from the total, and that leaves 150,026,000 people receiving non-veterans’ benefits.

The 153,323,000 total benefit-takers at the end of 2012, said the Census Bureau, equaled 49.5 percent of the population. The 150,026,000 taking benefits other than veterans’ benefits equaled about 48.5 percent of the population. “

” The federal government pays for a $15 million ‘wool trust fund,’ runs a $170 million program to protect catfish growers from overseas competition, sets aside $3 million to promote Christmas trees, funds another $2 million to help farmers sell more sheep, and plunks down $100 million researching how to get Americans to buy more maple syrup.

And that spending is just three one-hundredths of one per cent of the Farm Bill that President Barack Obama signed Friday in Michigan.

Liberal and conservative watchdogs alike are hopping mad at what they say are pork-barrel projects included in the five-year agriculture spending law as home-state perks to lawmakers that are unneeded or redundant.

There’s a new 15-cent levy on every live-cut Christmas tree, a proposal that Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack had blocked but will now be beyond his control. Tree growers will put the money into a fund for ‘industry-funded promotion, research, and information program[s],’ but the cost will inevitably be passed on to consumers.”

While there is plenty of pork to feed Congress’ corporate cronies the lion’s share of the “Farm” bill goes to foster government dependency for the individual …

” One in five American households receive food stamps today. More than 1 million people were added to the rolls in 2013, including residents who live in the country illegally.

In the year 2000 the entire food stamp program cost $17 billion. Last year that figure was $78 billion.

” Over and over, the media will treat your eyes and ears to the cut in food stamps that will apparently throw America in a zombie apocalypse and destroy the entire galaxy. They love to repeat over and over the size of the cut to the program – $5 billion sure sounds like a lot.

In most of the news articles about the supposedly draconian cut, there’s little mention of the size of the budget, which seems to be pretty important context. In 2012, we spent $78,437,000,000 on the program, meaning that a $5 billion cut amounts to about 6.3%. Extrapolated for the growth in the program until June (the last month for which numbers are available), America will spend about $81 billion in 2013.”

Since , as the government asserts , there is no inflation , there should be no harm in reducing food stamp funding back to 2011 levels … right ?

” New data has revealed what is perhaps the most depressing economic statistic of the year: More people in America are on welfare than have full-time jobs. Yes, you read that correctly. Welfare is now America’s most popular occupation.

From the U.S. Census Bureau, reported by Investor’s Business Daily:

At the end of 2011, the last year for which data are available, some 108.6 million people received one or more means-tested government benefit programs — bureaucratese for welfare.

Meanwhile, there were just 101.7 million people with full-time jobs, the Census data show, including both the private and government sectors.”

“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe

the public with the public’s money.”

It would appear that we’ve reached the endgame , which has been the progressive goal all along . A nation of dependents will continue to elect those that dole out the “entitlements” but another wise , departed soul had the last word on government largesse …. Lady Thatcher’s famous quote immediately comes to mind as we tumble headlong into insolvency :

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”

For those that haven’t noticed , we’ve run out of other people’s money .

” A few weeks ago we saw what happens when the Electronic Benefit Transfer system is threatened in any way. When access to food stamps went offline for just a few hours, the masses began to panic in what were essentially isolated hot spots where law & order totally broke down.

According to the USDA, the average monthly food benefit for an American family is about $272. Come November 1st, that will be reduced by $36 – or about 13%.

Most people aren’t even paying attention, but one organization certainly is, because they know exactly what can happen when you start taking food out of peoples’ mouths.

The Department of Homeland Security is spending $80 million on a wrath of armed guards to protect the IRS and other government buildings in New York, not from terrorist threats mind you, but from American citizens because on November 1st the food stamp program is set to start decreasing the amount that is allocated to food stamp recipients… and they’re worried that violence will ensue. “

” Food stamp recipients are turning the government handouts into quick cash with ads on Craigslist, despite efforts to stem fraud.

The federally-funded grocery assistance coupons — which are issued by states in the form of debit cards under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — are being sold on the online bulletin board as well as auction sites like eBay. FoxNews.com found several offerings at Craigslist sites around the country, where the sellers offered the welfare benefits at large discounts from face value.

The coupons are not supposed to be transferred, and Craigslist’s policy lists them among the items that are not allowed to be sold or bartered on the site. But unless someone flags such a post, there’s little the sites, which operate in small, medium and large markets around the country, can do. Critics suspect sellers either don’t need them any more because they have found work, or simply want to exchange them for cash so that they can buy drugs or other items that are not permitted under the rules of the program.

With one in every seven Americans on food stamps — up a million since June of last year — the impetus to cut down on fraud is rising. According to reports, nearly 850,000 people were investigated for possible SNAP fraud in the United States and 1,200 stores were permanently removed from the food stamp program for illegal conduct.”

” A recession-era increase in food stamp benefits is set to expire Nov. 1, leaving millions of families struggling to keep food on the table as the holidays approach. And that may not be the last cut to vital food assistance programs they will face in coming months.

As NBC News reports, the decrease in benefits comes as lawmakers also are considering billions of dollars of additional cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which has served as a lifeline to millions of households struggling under a weak economy and high unemployment.

According to recent government data, 23 million households rely on the program to help feed their families. After the food stamp benefit increase expires, a family of four can expect to receive $36 less each month. As NBC notes, that translates to four fewer chickens every month.”

There seems to be some disagreement as to how much the monthly reduction in SNAP benefits will be as the article and graph above attest.

” People in Ohio, Michigan and 15 other states found themselves unable to use their food stamp debit-style cards on Saturday, after a routine test of backup systems by vendor Xerox Corp. resulted in a system failure.

At about 9 a.m. Saturday, reports from across the country began pouring in that customers’ EBT cards were not working in stores.

“While the electronic benefits system is now up and running, beneficiaries in the 17 affected states continue to experience connectivity issues to access their benefits. Technical staff is addressing the issue and expect the system to be restored soon,” Wasmer said. “Beneficiaries requiring access to their benefits can work with their local retailers who can activate an emergency voucher system where available. We appreciate our clients’ patience while we work through this outage as quickly as possible.”

Wasmer said the affected states also included Alabama, California, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia.”

” America is still gaining jobs under President Obama, but millions more live in poverty, typical household incomes have not kept pace with inflation, and the federal debt is up nearly 90 percent and on pace to double before he leaves office. Stockholders, meanwhile, are far wealthier than they were the day he was sworn in.

U.S. oil production continues to boom, as do wind and solar power, while dependence on foreign oil keeps dropping. International opinion of the United States has slipped a bit, but generally remains far higher than before he took office, except in the Muslim world, where it has gotten even worse.

These are among the findings in our latest update of “Obama’s Numbers.”

” The Farm Bill is currently moving through Congress, and it’s bigger and more bloated than ever. This year’s version will spend nearly a trillion dollars on broken food and farm welfare over the next decade. Unfortunately, Congress is poised to rubber-stamp this bloated welfare bill known as the Farm Bill.

” The USDA does confirm, however, that an average of 1.37 million people received food stamps in Puerto Rico each month in fiscal year 2012. The island, which is a U.S. territory, has a population of 3.7 million, which means that 37% of Puerto Ricans get food stamps from Uncle Sam. Though the figure of 47.7 million in the U.S. shatters records, it still marks only 15.2% of the nation’s population of 313 million.”

” ObamaCare was sold as a way to achieve several goals: affordable care, guaranteed coverage, protections against bankruptcy.

But before such promises have a chance of being realized, the health reform appears to be delivering something else: Germany-style work-sharing.

Economists hailed Germany’s work-sharing for reducing unemployment during the recession. ObamaCare may be having a similar effect. But there are differences that make the health reform’s labor side-effects much more questionable.

Over the past year, retailers have cut average weekly hours for nonsupervisory workers by 2%, the sharpest such decline in more than three decades. Meanwhile, rank-and-file employment is up 132,000, or 1%, over the same period.

Some 2.3 million workers might have their hours cut due to ObamaCare’s employer mandates, even if there’s no negative impact on total hours worked, a recent study from the University of California at Berkeley Labor Center estimated.

The other part of the equation involves more government benefits for those facing shorter hours. This will come starting in 2014 from ObamaCare health subsidies. Households working less may also get additional benefits, such as food stamps.”

” The Tsarnaev family, including the suspected terrorists and their parents, benefited from more than $100,000 in taxpayer-funded assistance — a bonanza ranging from cash and food stamps to Section 8 housing from 2002 to 2012, the Herald has learned.

“The breadth of the benefits the family was receiving was stunning,” said a person with knowledge of documents handed over to a legislative committee today.

The state has handed over more than 500 documents to the 11-member House Post Audit and Oversight Committee, which today met for the first time and plans to call in officials from the Department of Transitional Assistance to testify.”

” On Friday “Boomtown 2: The Business of Food Stamps” Government Accountability Institute (GAI) President Peter Schweizer and Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon exposed how politicians and corporations have used the country’s food stamps program to profit on the backs of tax payers.

The fraud of the food stamps program has grown since EBT cards were issued in 2002, which gave no reason for either government or corporations to look to reform the system or limit the fraud.

J. P. Morgan, which administers many of the EBT cards, like other companies, gets a cut from each transaction provided via the food stamps program. The entire system is a fraud and immoral.

Not only do corporations profit from this corrupt system, but companies like Coca Cola and Kraft Foods have “lobbied against laws” that would make sodas ineligible to purchase with food stamps Schweizer said.”

” Since taking office in 2009, food stamp rolls under President Barack Obama have risen to more than 47 million people in America, exceeding the population of Spain.

When Obama entered office in January 2009 there were 31,939,110Americans receiving food stamps. As of November 2012—the most recent data available—there were 47,692,896Americans enrolled, an increase of 49.3 percent.

Furthermore, between January 2009 and November 2012 the food stamp program added approximately an average 11,269 recipients per day.”

See Also …

The above links date from the past few months as each month brings a new record in the percentage of families newly dependent on government handouts . The ZeroHedge link below is from yesterday and is offered as a companion piece to the featured story .

” While hardly presented by the mainstream media with the same panache dedicated to the monthly ARIMA-X-12 seasonally-adjusted, climate-affected, goal-seek devised non-farm payroll data, the three month delayed Foodstamp number is according to many a far greater attestation to the “effectiveness” of the Obama administration to turn the economy around.

Here is the “money” quote , pun intended …

” The cost to the government to keep these 23 million households content and not rising up? $281.21 per month per household.”

Well , you say , it’s a mere $281 a month , which was our initial thought as well but if you do the math , the number , constantly on the rise mind you , is significant . We’ll save you the trouble of digging your cell phone out of your pocket to get to your calculator app and tell you that $281.21 times 23,000,000 households adds up to a whopping $6,467,830,000 per month in SNAP payments alone . That’s right … nearly six and one half BILLION dollars per month in benefits .

Here is a page directly from the Congressional Budget Office with projections for the next ten years . Note that they show a peak enrollment in 2014 with a steady downward trend from then to 2022 thus reducing benefit outlays( theoretically) , yet administrative costs never falter on their journey skyward . Why is that ?

Click The Graphic For The Full Sized PDF At The CBO

The page below corroborates the endless upward growth in administrative costs of the SNAP program in somewhat greater detail .

” The U.S. government ( Taxpayers ) spent about $2.2 billion last year to provide phones to low-income Americans, but a Wall Street Journal review of the program shows that a large number of those who received the phones haven’t proved they are eligible to receive them.

The Lifeline program—begun in 1984 to ensure that poor people aren’t cut off from jobs, families and emergency services—is funded by charges that appear on the monthly bills of every landline and wireless-phone customer. Payouts under the program have shot up from $819 million in 2008, as more wireless carriers have persuaded regulators to let them offer the service.

A review of five top recipients of Lifeline support conducted by the FCC for the Journal showed that 41% of their more than six million subscribers either couldn’t demonstrate their eligibility or didn’t respond to requests for certification.

Suspecting that many of the new subscribers were ineligible, the Federal Communications Commission tightened the rules last year and required carriers to verify that existing subscribers were eligible. The agency estimated 15% of users would be weeded out, but far more were dropped.

The carriers—AT&TT +0.62% Inc.; Telrite Corp.; Tag Mobile USA; Verizon CommunicationsVZ -0.05% Inc.; and the Virgin Mobile USA unit of Sprint Nextel Corp. S +1.04% —accounted for 34% of total Lifeline subscribers last May. Two of the other largest providers, TracFone Wireless Inc. and Nexus Communications Inc., asked the FCC to keep their counts confidential. Results for the full program weren’t available.

The program is open to people who meet federal poverty guidelines or are on food stamps, Medicaid or other assistance programs, and only one Lifeline subscriber is allowed per household.

The program, which is administered by the nonprofit Universal Service Administrative Co., has grown rapidly as wireless carriers persuaded regulators to let people use the program for cellphone service. It pays carriers $9.25 a customer per month toward free or discounted wireless service.

Americans pay an average of $2.50 a month per household to fund a number of subsidized communications programs, including Lifeline.”